Let Blessed Silence Fall
by meri47
Summary: A Tag Team Race from Veilstone City to Pastoria- you'd think that it'd be a great idea. But it's highly unlikely that the supervisors planned on some contestants falling into the Distortion World.
1. Chapter 1

It was almost time. It was almost over. They were coming.

"Come to the mount-ain, mount-ain, mount-ain, come to the mount-ain, mountain top!"

It thought It was crazy. Hell (isthisit? isthisall? isthishell?), It KNEW It was crazy.

But soon It was going to go home (home home home whycan'tIremember)

"Al-most, al-most, ally-ally- oxen free!"

All It had to do was wait.

. . .

Roxanne snapped her bubblegum. It was a beautiful sunshiny-sweet day in the neighborhood. And seeing as they were in Veilstone, that was pretty freakin' sweet!

She smiled at her Lucario. "Skidmore, my sweet! Cannest thou not feel the glory that will..uh…that will…uhhh…."

"_The glory that will be rising triumphantly from the chaos of a mighty battle, to prostrate itself before thy beauty?"_

Roxanne gave a giggle-snort. "Righey-O, Skidmore-sweetie! I knew I kept you around for a reason!"

Skidmore rolled his eyes. "_I thought that you kept me around because you had no idea how to take care of yourself_."

"Well-THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Roxanne blustered.

The tone of Skidmore's reply may or may not have been sarcasm. Except it was Skidmore, so it totally was. "_As you say, Roxanne. As you say._"

Skidmore was in more of a funk than usual. He and his Roxanne had been perfectly happy to bum around Sinnoh, all on their own. He was strong enough to take good care of both Roxanne and himself, thank you very much! But then they had the misfortune to wander into Jubilife City and see a flyer for a "Tag-Team Race of the Ages!". And then Roxanne, with an attention span more fit for a six year old than a sixteen year old, had been unable to talk of anything but it. It had taken a week, but he had caved.

So now they were milling around the courtyard in front of the Department Store with about a hundred other Trainers, all waiting to find out who they were going to be stuck with for the duration of the race.

It was going to be a long day.

. . .

In the end, it was an hour late that the MC finally got everything set up. During that time, the crowd had grown to 250 people, and Roxanne had managed to get into battles with 18 of them. Skidmore had won all 18, but it was still rather tiring to battle again and again, and again. But that was the price, he reflected, of being the only Pokemon on a team.

Roxanne was bouncing up and down. "Skid! Skid! That girl over there, with the Steelix and the Skarmory! Let's battle her next, come on!"

"IF ALL CONTESTANTS COULD PLEASE CEASE ALL BATTLES AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS! THANK YOU!"

"Awww…."

The MC had a manic grin on her face, and the slight tinge of madness in her gaze was a testament of how long she had stayed up suffering through meetings running only on espresso coffee to get the race up and running, and was now only caring about the fact that the whole darn event was almost over. "NOW! ALL OF OUR LOVELY CONTESTENTS, PLEASE LOOK DOWN AT YOUR TICKET, AND NOTE THE POKEMON!"

Roxanne dutifully looked: A Butterfree.

"YOUR PARTNER WILL HAVE THE SAME POKEMON ON THEIR TICKET! PLEASE FIND YOUR PARTNER!"

Roxanne began to swing around like a mad Tauros, waving her ticket around like a banner, and narrowly avoiding slapping the milling contestants all around her. "BUTTERFREE! BUTTERFREE!". Skidmore slapped himself in the face with his paw, and swore to never let Roxanne talk him into anything. Ever again.

"You're the girl with the Butterfree ticket?"

Roxanne whirled around, beaming, ready to meet her partner, who would surely be tall, handsome, and very nice. "Yes! And you are? I'm Roxanne!"

Her partner smiled. "My name is Terrance, Terrance Vinson. It's a pleasure to meet you, Roxanne. Is that your Lucario?"

Roxanne grinned. "Yeah! What kind of Pokemon do you have? Are they strong? Cute? Nice? Can they fly?"

Terrance gave a slightly bemused grin in response. "I have a Teddurusa named Amberly and a Smoochum named Juliette."

"So they can't fly?"

Terrance's grin was beginning to look rather baffled, rather than bemused. "No."

Roxanne shrugged. "Oh well. I'm sure that we'll win anyway! Let's GO! C'mon Skid!"

. . .

Roxanne thought that she had done rather well in the race partners department, all things considered. Terrance seemed like a good sort of guy to hang around with, and he WAS awfully cute…She'd certainly done better than the Steelix-Skarmory girl, who was already being handcuffed to an angry looking guy with dyed blonde hair and a Beheeyem. Wait…Handcuffed?

"-AND THE HANDCUFFS WILL ONLY BE REMOVED AT THE END OF THE RACE BY A MEMBER OF THE STAFF!"

Roxanne turned wildly around, as she hastily was cuffed to Terrance by a haggard looking woman. She grabbed the woman before she could run, and screeched at a note only normally reached by Zubat "CUFFED? THE FLYER DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS, NOTHING!"

The staff woman gave a frantic shake of her head. "Miss, you must not have read it carefully enough, the cuff rule is clearly stated under-"

Terrance took on a placating tone as he was cuffed without resisting. "Roxanne, I assure you, I'm not going to try anything untoward to you while we're wearing these."

Roxanne ignored him, and tightened her grip on the panicked looking staff woman, who clearly wished that she had never heard of a tag team race with a cuffing rule. "I READ THAT FLYER VERY-VERY CLEARLY AND NOWHERE ON IT WAS THERE ANY MENTION OF A 'CUFFING RULE! IT SAID NOTHING ABOUT THAT, NOTHING!

"_Yes it did. And I mentioned it to you several times when I was attempting to talk you out of it, remember?"_

Roxanne froze. "Wha?"

"_The flyer said: "All contestants must consent to wearing handcuffs for the duration of the tag team race. The cuffs will be removed only after both contestants cross the finish line."_

Roxanne loosed her grip, and the beleaguered staff woman dove into the crush of people and vanished. "….Oh. Oops."

Terrance playfully gave the cuffs a tug while he released his Teddurusa and settled him on his shoulders to ride piggy-back style. "Cheer up, Roxanne! This is going to be fun!"

Roxanne sighed. "I guess…But Skidmore, you have to tell me these things! Who knows what kind of mess I could get into the next time!"

"_Of course, Roxanne. Next time I will make myself perfectly clear."_

Roxanne gave a madcap grin, and tugged back on the cuffs. "Well, who knows, this could be really fun! Terrance, let's beat the crap out of all of these people!"

Terrance gave a grin in return, and his Teddurusa pumped a paw into the air. "I look forward to it, Roxanne!"

Cheerful again, Roxanne, Skidmore, Terrance and Amberly wiggled their way through the crowd to the starting line.

The MC took a breath, hoisted up the megaphone, and made a fervent wish for ten hours of sleep on something other than a chair. "ON YOUR MARKS! GET SET! GO!"

. . .


	2. Chapter 2

When the MC said "GO!", Kim tried to run, really tried. But unfortunately for her, the person that she was with was both about half a foot taller and about twenty pounds heavier. So all that she really did was give herself a bad case of whiplash. Her Skarmory had actually taken flight in preparation for the mad dash forward and had to make a few ungraceful adjustments to her flight patterns so that she didn't lose contact with Kim.

"Why did you stop me? Now we're in last place!"

Kim's partner gave her a disgusted look, and then decided to lower himself to the level of the rest of the world and deign to actually speak to her. "I stopped because if we got caught up in that crush, then we would also be subjected to many battles at once. Those people can't keep up at that pace soon, so they'll stop and battle, hoping to weed out competitors. Once that happens, the entire roadway will be completely blocked off, and it'll take hours to get through it."

Kim bit her lip. "But they've still got a head start on us. Won't the ones at the front…I don't know, break away? How can you be sure that's what they're going to do?"

Her partner exchanged exasperated looks with his Beheeyem. "They'll do it because they're people, and people are all at the same general rate of intelligence- and by that, I mean average."

Kim rocked back on her heels, uncertain. Was this guy serious? Was he joking? Well, she thought, he has to be. I mean, she reasoned; what kind of person would go around saying that all people were a bunch of idiots?

"Are you done trying to think yet? I want to get a move on and find the shortcut."

They got moving.

. . .

Kim had never thought the saying 'you could cut the tension in the air with a knife' was anything more than an exaggeration, but she was now experiencing it firsthand. It was more awkward than she had thought possible.

Or maybe he really was a complete jerk after all. But since she was stuck with him for a while, she thought to herself, then she might as well try to make the best of it.

"So," she forced out "So- do you have a name? Mine is Kim, by the way, Kim Burrel. And my Skarmory is named Mimi."

"…It's Douglas. And my Beheeyem doesn't have a nickname."

"Douglas? Douglas what?"

"Just Douglas. Now be quiet, we need to get going."

"I-um, OK!" Kim gave a nervous giggle, and her Skarmory flapped her wings eagerly.

. . .

Kim didn't know what to think. On the one hand, Douglas seemed to be a smart guy, and from the way his Beheeyem was able to easily take down the random Houndour and Girafarig that had accosted them in the past hour. But on the other hand, he rarely spoke, and when he did speak it was always to make some sort of condescending remark about Kim's intelligence or skills as a trainer.

Douglas was currently leading them through the woods on the west side of Route 214, following a path that to Kim and Mimi was indistinguishable from the surrounding area. The only distinguishing feature that Kim could see was that they were going gradually uphill. He also insisted on walking in front of her, which made the handcuffs chafe uncomfortably in her wrist; and refused to respond to either Mimi's or her many friendly overtures.

It was all rather discouraging, Kim thought.

Mimi gave Kim a friendly poke with her beak, in an attempt to cheer her trainer up. She, unlike her trainer, was in a very good mood, as she had been easily knocking out random Combee and Heracross with her Air Cutter when she got bored, as Douglas's Beheeyem was easily able to subdue the Pokemon of any trainers that they came across with a well-timed Psyshock. Mimi was having a perfectly lovely time on this little escapade.

Kim was beginning to hope, in the back of her mind, that Douglas would fall off of a bridge and die.

. . .

"I spy with my little eye…something green!"

"Skarm-skarm, skarma!"

"….Yes, it is a tree, Mimi."

"Just like it was the _last_ seven times. Would the two of you cease your inane gabbing and let me concentrate on where we're going?"

Kim ground her teeth. They had been tramping through the woods for another hour, and still with nothing to show for it, other than these two facts: that Kim knew that she would never be able to find her way out of the woods without help, and that there was no way that they would possibly meet another person out here. And to make matters worse, it was starting to get very dark out.

"Heya there! Are you guys lost too?"

But, Kim reflected, fate did love to screw with people who were stupid enough to tempt her with statements like that. OF COURSE they would run into what was probably the only other duo that got stuck in the woods, and OF COURSE it would happen the very second after she said "There was no way that they would possibly meet another person out here". So of course they did.

The girl bounded over towards them, a large grin on her face, towing a taller boy with dark hair and a Teddurusa riding on his shoulders; and matched her pace to the hasty one that Douglas had pulled her into the moment that he had seen them coming. "My Skidmore's been tracking you guys for a while now! We- well, I got put on map duty, even though I told Skidmore that I'd be better off making sure that Terr and Amberly were holding up with the battles OK, but he _insisted,_ so…."

Her Lucario slapped himself in the face with his paw. "_Roxanne, you were the one that _insisted _on taking the map for yourself. I attempted to talking you out of it, however-"_

The girl- Roxanne, apparently- hastily interrupted him. "A-anyway! So would you mind if we stuck with you guys for a while? And you've got a FLYING Pokemon! Those things are great!" Roxanne, to Kim's amazement, actually began to bounce on the balls of her feet and clap her hands. "You guys can help us get out of this godforsaken place!"

"No, we can't. And you should leave."

Roxanne stumbled, mid-bounce. "…What?"

Her partner- Terr, Kim remembered Roxanne calling him- let out a startled noise. "Now really, if this is about the contest, then you have nothing to worry about! We'll be leaving you alone the moment that we can find our way out of the forest!"

Douglas stopped abruptly, and gave him a glare that could've caused a Kangaskhan to keel over. "I don't give a damn about the contest. What I care about is the two of you leaving before-"

Kim froze at what she could see over Douglas's shoulder. "CLEARING!" She yelled, "CLEARING! Oh thank Arceus, we're finally out of these stupid woods!"

The moment that the words were out of her mouth, Kim was practically run over by Roxanne and Terr, as they bolted for the break in the wall of trees.

Douglas swore, and ran after them, forcing Kim into a sprint that she could barely keep up with. "WAIT!" He yelled, "WAIT, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING INTO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND-"

Kim gave a panicked shriek when Douglas suddenly pitched forward off of a cliff face, taking her down with him. "MIMI!" She wailed, "MI-MI!"

"SKARMORY!"

Kim felt Mimi's talons grab onto her backpack a second later, but when another second passed she knew that it was no good. Mimi, as strong as she was, couldn't hold up two people at once. And neither could her backpack.

As her last hope snapped, and Kim and Douglas hit the water below, a last thought ran through her head: "When I wished for him to fall off of a bridge, I didn't mean that he should take me with him!"


	3. Chapter 3

Douglas hit the water with a resounding smack, and barely had a moment to draw in half of a breath before that Skarmory slammed on top of him, causing him to draw in water, not precious air up into his lungs.

He watched the Stupid Girl and her flailing Skarmory above him- steel and flying were no good at all in the water- with a detached amusement before a tendril of foggy panic touched his mind.

"TRAIN-ER. TRAIN-ER, WE ARE DY-ING."

_Beyheem…We are?_

"TRAIN-ER. WE NEED AIR."

_I know. But I want to stay here and rest for a while. I never get to rest at all up there. _

_ "_TRAIN-ER. YOU MUST REM-EM-BER WHY WE ARE HERE."

And then, like Beheeyem had flicked a switch, it all came flooding into his head at once. Douglas promptly expelled the last bubbles of air that he had left in a panic, and began to thrash around.

He couldn't die. Not yet, he wasn't done yet. He still had more work to do, that was the whole reason for all of this, that was why he had brought that Stupid Girl here, to be ready right on time.

_I won't die_, he snarled to himself. _You Stupid Girl, you won't make me die, not when I'm so close-_

Douglas reached a surface of the water, dragging Beheeyem, the Stupid Girl and her Skarmory with him. He took a huge, wonderful gulp of air, his hands still clawing forward like they couldn't stop trying to swim out of the water-

And promptly fell forward? Backward? Head-over-heels? Into more water, this time a waterfall.

He kept tumbling over and over, with the only bizarre thought in his mind that now he finally knew what it was like to be in a washing machine. He cracked his head on a frantically wailing Skarmory, and then blacked out.

. . .

Douglas came to all at once, with a gasp of air and hands that grabbed tightly onto sweet solid land, thank Arceus. Douglas took a few seconds longer to open his eyes, half convinced that the moment he did he would find himself falling through the water again. When he'd finally worked up the nerve, Stupid Girl and her Skarmory were staring at him.

Stupid Stupid Girl and her Skarmory.

Wow, even in his head, that sounded lame.

She'd started babbling the moment that she knew that he was fully awake, her voice cheerful and upbeat despite the anxious look in her eyes. "You've been out for-for quite a while, I think. I'm not- not exactly sure, you see, my watch sort of broke in the water, but I'm guessing that it's been something like twenty minutes…But, like I said, I don't exactly know-"

"Shut up, would you?," He snapped "Where are we, anyway? Did we get out of the lake?"

She stopped her panicked gabbing, and Douglas could almost feel her retreating back into her mind, throwing up metaphorical barriers and drawing curtains that said: Nobody Home.

"Well?" He hissed. "Well? My vision is a bit impaired, and all that I can see is that it's dark out and quiet. Now stop being a dullard, AND TELL ME WH-"

"I don't know where we are, Douglas."

Her voice, completely flat and lacking in anything, gave him pause. It also gave him a tiny but bright and desperate surge of hope. Could it be, could it possibly be, could he have possibly finally done it-

Douglas stood up as fast as he could, ignoring the pain in his head and the sudden change of vertigo; and began desperately concentrating on getting his vision clear, dammit, he had to see, he had to know- There was an incline just there, if he went to it then he would have a much better vantage point-

And all of a sudden, there it all was.

. . .

It was nothing like he had pictured it. It was everything like he had pictured it.

He was completely and utterly terrified. He was in complete awe.

He wanted to stare at it forever. He wanted to turn away, hide his eyes, and never open them again.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to stay here for the rest of his life.

Douglas fainted.

. . .

When he woke up again, Douglas came up with several facts: One, that he was in the right place. Two, Stupid Girl and her Skarmory were here with him, so all had gone according to plan. And Three, that when people said that they hurt in places that they never knew that they had were not exaggerating.

Douglas dragged himself up the rise to get another look, ignoring the Stupid Girls attempt to help and the Skarmory's attempts to hold him down.

When he got another good vantage point, he took another look around, this time focusing on the features of the terrain: Terracotta soil lying on top of ink-black islands of rock that were defying gravity. _OK_, he thought. _So gravity doesn't apply here. I can deal with that._ There was no vegetation of any kind that he could see, but water was in abundance; it poured from the.. ceiling? Easily enough, but it…just kept going through the air, never stopping, going down to-

Douglas looked down, saw what was there- _or more accurately,_ he corrected dazedly, _what wasn't there_.

Douglas fainted again.

. . .

The third time he woke up, his legs were being sat on by the girl, and her Skarmory had pinned his arms. His loud and varied vocabulary of curses had no visible effect on them, but when he made a comment about her mother, the girl hit him over the head with her backpack. He lost consciousness again, but this time due to being knocked out, rather than his brain being unable to comprehend what it was seeing.

. . .

The fourth time he woke up, Douglas was finally calm. He noticed that the Girl, while watching him warily, was no longer making any moves to restrain him. Douglas continued to stare at her steadily, and then dredged up the reserves of his strength to say: "Thank you."

The Girl nodded once, and relaxed slightly. "Are you going to faint again?"

Douglas shook his head. He had entered a zen-like state of calm, and was not the slightest bit bothered by her words, which earlier would have caused him to insult her. "No…I think not."

The Girl nodded again. "Do you know where we are?"

Douglas sat up. "Yes and No."

The Girl stared at him with a blank look on her face, and as she did, Douglas noticed that her Skarmory- and Beheeyem, for that matter- were gone.

"Your Beheeyem's been gone since you fainted that first time, and Mimi went off after that last time to try and follow the- the waterfall back up, to see if we could get out of here that way."

Alarm ran through Douglas. _Could that be done?_" Can it do it?"  
>The girl began to rock back and forth, in a way that Douglas knew was completely unconscious. She was too afraid to notice. She raised her head up too look him straight in the eye for the first time since he'd met her. "I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know this place, I don't know why or how we got here, I don't know how we can see fairly clearly when there is <strong>clearly <strong>no sun or light anywhere. I don't know why gravity stopped working- I looked too, you know, and **I **didn't faint!"

While giving her tirade, the Girl's voice had steadily risen in volume as she had steadily risen off of the ground.

"I DON'T KNOW HOW ANY-" She gave a helpless, all-encompassing wave of her hands to the surrounding area. "-ANY OF THIS CAN BE ANY SORT OF HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE!"

She stopped shouting with a gulping noise, like she was battling to hold back a sob, drew herself up to her full height and rooted him to the spot with a ferocious, if watery, stare. "But you know. I remember: on that ridge, that ridge that YOU LEAD US TO! You were trying to get here, to get us to this- this PLACE!

"And I've been thinking; and I **can **do that, you know! I've been thinking that for some reason you needed me here too. Or someone like me, anyway. So- start talking. Or-" Her Skarmory wheeled in from above, and shook her head. The Girl froze for a split second, a petrified look on her face- and then the next second it was gone, replaced by dogged determination.

"Or, better yet: talk while we walk."

Douglas's train of thought was in shambles. He stared at her from the ground with a sense of dawning wonderment and a sickening lurch of his stomach. "You aren't stupid at all, are you?" He rasped. "You…You really do think."

The Girl- Kim, her name was Kim! Gave a nod. "No. I'm not."

As the Girl- No, Kim- turned around to start walking, Douglas felt sick. She wasn't stupid, not even a bit.

Douglas began to follow behind her, going silent, not from exhaustion, but from panic and desperate mental calculation. He stared at her back: she looked normal from that angle, medium- length straight brown hair and a baseball cap.

His entire plan had depended on his partner being someone that he could out-think. But this Kim wasn't stupid.

This was going to be a lot harder than he'd thought.


	4. Chapter 4

Amberly had been crying at a steady rate for the past hour, though he had taken care to be doing it silently. And Terrance was glad of it. He was scared. Honestly, properly, deep-down scared. But, he hadn't been trained as a butler for nothing. And one of the hallmarks of a great butler was that they never lost their cool. Never. And it wouldn't do to let Miss Roxanne know how dire he thought their situation was.

Roxanne had enough to deal with. Skidmore was catatonic on the ground, and Roxanne looked like she wanted to join him there. She also hadn't stopped chattering to him in the hopes that he would wake up and acknowledge her.

"And I really don't get people who like avocado, because it's so slimy going down and, alright, the taste isn't bad, but when you think of all of the many other things that you could be eating, there really isn't any competition over which one any sane person would go for!" Roxanne took a deep breath, ready to continue babbling about avocado, when Terrance slapped a hand over her mouth.

Terrance spoke quickly, before Roxanne had a chance to react and lash out at him. "Miss Roxanne. You need to be calm. Your Skidmore seems to be in no immediate danger, and we don't appear to be in any either. So stop. Take a breath. And listen to me: Everything is going to be alright."

Above his hand, Roxanne's brown eyes were still large and wet, and her auburn hair was getting steadily messier due to how much her hands were running through it. But Terrance was relieved. She was calmer now.

"I'm going to take my hand off of your mouth now. Will you remain silent, Miss Roxanne?"

Roxanne nodded furiously. Terrance gave a mental shrug. She was as calm as he could hope to get her, under the circumstances. Terrance removed his hand, and Roxanne promptly turned her full attention back to Skidmore, though silently this time; and never moved her eyes from his face, as though she could heal him if she stared long enough and hard enough.

Terrance ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "OK," He said, "OK. So: We have a sort of idea of how we got here. We fell off of the ledge overlooking the lake. We both tried to swim to the surface, but when we came up out of the water, we were in a completely different place." _And hadn't that been one heck of a shock_, he thought_. You go underwater in a lake in a forest, and you come up again in some place right out of a nightmare_. "We've tried going back the way that we came, but we always come back up here, no matter how deep we go- and there doesn't seem to be a bottom, either.

"And for some reason there doesn't seem to be anything really alive here, except for us. No wild pokemon, nothing."

Terrance scuffed his shoes on the terracotta ground. What kind of a place _were_ they, if there were no pokemon?

"_N__**o **_sky _too, __**but**__ then __**w**__e have su__**ch **_poor_ e__**yes**__. It__**'s **_hard_ to s__**ee**__ a d__**iffe**_renc_e_."

Terrance, Amberly, and Roxanne both let out eerily similar shrieks of alarm at the new voice, and frantically looked around for someone to assign it to.

"_Funny-funny! I __**can still**__ rem_emb_er sorta-kinda what the _sky looked_ like! It was __**green**__, and _wavy_, and p__**rickled **__your feet when you __**walked barefoot**__ on it, right_?"

"Show yourself!" Terrance yelled, grabbing Amberly up into his arms.

Roxanne crouched protectively over Skidmore's body, her eyes darting anxiously in all directions.

"_My __**Brother**__, my _Brother_, I knew you would come for me_!"

Terrance's head began to ache. "Brother-? I-I don't-"

"_I waited for you! Like __**Mommy**__ an' __**Daddy**__ said: '_When you get los' wait f'someone t'come an get ya_.'"_

The voice was coming from right behind them. It sounded like it belonged to that of a young boy, maybe eight to ten years old.

Terrance spun around, and saw who had been speaking. The scream that he had instinctively worked up on sight died in his throat.

Its skin was withered and wrinkled over muscles shrunken and desiccated from hunger. Its hair had been leached of color and hung in wispy white shreds to its balding scalp. Its grayish lips had pulled back from yellowed teeth, and the teeth almost brittle and fragile looking against its shrunken gums. It was barely four feet tall.

"Terr," Roxanne whispered, "_Look at its eyes."_

Terrance looked. Its eyes were the worst part. They looked young, and belonged on the face of a boy.

On this face, they looked profane.

It smiled, and Terrance reeled back so fast that he fell over backwards, and crabwalked to Roxanne, who had planted herself between Skidmore and the Thing, as if she thought that it was going to run at them and attack. Amberly had buried his head into Terrance's chest, and had refused to remove it since It had arrived.

The ghastly smile faded from Its face. "_Oh. Oh yeah! I rem__**ember now! The last one told **__me too: He said that __**we don't notice,**__ but once we_'v_e been here about _a thousand years_, we only have __**one thing left of ourselves **__that looks the same as _when We came_ here."_ It raised its hands to touch its face. They were as old as the rest of its body, almost translucent and patchy with liver spots. "Ray_- he was the one before me- he had the __**same hair as**__ when he __**came here. And**__ his __**Hypno**_had the same pendulum_!"_

Terrance choked on his own tongue for a few seconds before he could get the words out of his mouth right. "…I don't-have-a-brother-like- _you_."

It blinked Noctowlishly at Terrance for an achingly long moment before it began to giggle, chortle, and then laugh out loud.

At the sound of Its laugh, as youthful as Its eyes, Terrance gagged. Roxanne turned her face away and outright puked. Amberly did nothing but clench tighter to Terrance's chest. Only Skidmore, still unconscious, was unmoved.

It finally stopped laughing and stared at the four of them. "Oh." It said, again sounding like a small boy. "_Oh. You…y'aren't __**joking, are you? But-**__but I was so…__**so sure. 'Cause**__-'cause- he _promised_ me, he _PROMISED_ me that he'd come an' get me__**…But…Then why're**__ you guys here?"_ Its voice had gotten progressively thicker, like It was trying very hard not to cry.

Terrance and Roxanne exchanged helpless looks. Then Roxanne, visibly steeling herself, stood up with shaking legs and a queasy expression, and touched Its shoulder in what was meant obviously meant to be a mimicry of a comforting gesture.

It stopped whimpering in shock, and stared at Roxanne like It had never seen her before. Roxanne held her ground, though Terrance could see that she longed to put as much distance between herself and It as she could.

And then It flung itself into Roxanne's arms and began to keen and howl in complete and utter misery and with complete and utter abandon. Roxanne's knees buckled, and her face went stark white. She turned her head back to Terrance, who couldn't bring himself to move, and could only stare as It wept.

A single, wild thought ran across his mind: _You don't want to avert your eyes when It cries like this because It looks wrong. You want to turn away because it looks pathetic…and…pitiable._

And then Roxanne did something that Terrance never would have seen coming, would never even have considered.

Roxanne, with her auburn hair and easygoing ignorance of any type of responsibility, whom he had suspected had nowhere near the amount of emotional maturity needed to be compassionate or empathetic at all; put her arms around It.

Terrance thought that he could see from the way that her face was still white that she still wanted to run, still wanted to turn away. But Terrance also prided himself on a good mastery of reading body language, and he was forced to admit that her shaking was not completely from disgust.

Her shaking was also saying that Roxanne was crying too.

. . .

The moment was over quickly. Roxanne and It jumped away from each other at almost exactly the same moment, and looked away from each other. At that, Terrance gave himself a mental slap on the head. If Roxanne, _Roxanne_, of all people could pull herself together, than it would be an insult to his years of training to be impeccable and ineffable to do otherwise. Even his Amberly had stopped crying, finally. They had all entered a strange sense of calm. _And maybe_, Terrance thought, _maybe It could answer some questions_. It seemed to be living here, so maybe it knew a way out of here.

"So," He whispered, "So, who are you?"

It turned to face him. _"….Denny. __**Dennis**_."

"Are you lost?"

"No_. And _Yes_."_

"Which is it?" Roxanne asked.

"_Both_." It said.

Roxanne hissed a very rude and unkind word under her breath, and Terrance hastily tried very hard to at the same time not hear it and delete it from his memory. His Amberly giggled.

Exasperated, and losing the calm he had gained, Terrance rubbed his hand against the bridge of his nose and decided that he needed to get to the point, and quickly. "Do you know how we can get out of here?"

It didn't say anything in a way that told Terrance that It knew _exactly_ how to leave, and Terrance knew with a glance at Roxanne that she saw it too.

She took a threatening step forward. "Out with it!"  
>It scowled at her. "<em>You <em>_**can't**__ leave yet. _Y'haven't done what I_ did __**for Ray when**__ I got here."_

"And what was that, pray tell?" Roxanne bit out.

It- he had to remember that It was not an it anymore, It had a name and It was pathetic and pitiable when It cried, not disgusting- grinned. "_I _faced the Dark_**for Ray. And**__ then Ray and __**his Hypno got**__ to leave."_

Terrance didn't try to stop the grin from spreading on his face. "It's that easy? We can get out of…of wherever this is that easily?"

"_Or that hard. But, it is simple_!" Dennis trilled out.

Roxanne already had a grip on Skidmore, and was trying to pull his unresponsive body onto here back. "Dennis! Where do we go to find this 'Dark'?"

At the sound of Roxanne saying his name, Dennis' face glowed.

. . .

In his head, Terrance was whacking himself over the head with a very large saucepan. His Amberly was riding on his head, and pulling at his hair in alarm. Roxanne, who was carrying Skidmore piggyback, looked like she was contemplating strangling Dennis, and was working herself into a fury. As they had walked and jumped over tracts of terracotta ground- gravity seemed to be spotty here- they had gotten over much of their revulsion; for the most part.

But Terrance still couldn't look Dennis in the eyes without wanting to flinch.

Roxanne, on the other hand, was either completely over her revulsion or was much better at hiding her emotions than Terrance had given her credit for.

"WE HAVE TO SWIM? SERIOUSLY, WE HAVE TO SWIM? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SWIM WITH SKIDMORE ON MY BACK, YOU FOOL?"

Dennis was cowering near the edge of the water, looking rather like he was face to face with a rampaging Tauros. Terrance, for his part, was having a hard time keeping a straight face. But then, he wasn't the one facing down Hurricane Roxanne.

"DO YOU HAVE _ANY_ IDEA HOW HEAVY SKIDMORE IS!"

"_But_-" Dennis bleated.

"I HAVE BEEN THROUGH QUITE A LOT TODAY, YOU KNOW! I FELL DOWN INTO SOME NIGHTMARE WORLD, _AND_ SKIDMORE HAS _NEVER_ GONE THIS LONG WITHOUT SAYING SOMETHING. SO IF YOU DON'T FIND ANOTHER WAY TO FACE 'THE DARK' IN THE _NEXT FIVE SECONDS_, SO HELP ME I'M GOING TO-!"

` "_We don't have to swim! __**Ollie can**__ spin us _a web across the w_ater_!"

Roxanne stopped her tirade, a nonplussed expression appearing on her face. "…What?"

"_Ollie. My Galvantula!"_

"You're _what_?" Terrance asked. "There isn't a pokemon that I've heard of called that."

Dennis threw a smug smile in Terrance's and Teddiursa's direction. "Ollie is so_ real, and __**he is so a Galvantula**__. I'm from __**Unova,**__ I got him there_!"

Roxanne flashed them both a wide grin, completely over her brief fit of temper. She bounced on the balls of her feet, and swung her head in all directions to look for Ollie. "So then let's_ go_! Where is this Galvanta-thingie?"

Dennis smiled again. "Galvantula and_ Ollie. And,_" Dennis pointed to a space above Terrance's head. "_Ollie __**is coming down right **__there_!"

Terrance whipped around and jumped away, nearly throwing Amberly off of his perch, and stared at the spider-thing as it descended. Ollie was almost entirely hairless, and translucent. Like Dennis, what little hair that was left was brittle and gray. Ollie's eyes, however, were as clear and young as Dennis' were. Terrance shuddered. He hated pokemon like spiders. They _scuttled_, and that gave him the creeps.

As Ollie passed by them, Amberly dug his claws into Terrance's scalp. Terrance was about to utter a word of reproach, when he saw Amberly's face: It was horrified revulsion, fear, and what looked like a strong desire to be violently ill.

_Just like Roxanne and I when we saw Dennis_, Terrance thought.

Terrance turned to watch Ollie spin a web across the water with new eyes. _What was this place_, he wondered, _what was this place that twisted pokemon and humans up so badly that their own kind could barely stand to look at them?_

Once Ollie had finished, Terrance stepped cautiously around the spider pokemon, who clicked its mandibles in a way that Terrance assumed was a friendly way.

Amberly dug his claws in deeper.

. . .

Terrance was halfway across the web when he heard it, and almost fell into the water from shock. For a moment, he didn't know what it was, and then he remembered.

It was shouting. Someone was shouting.

Shouting.

PEOPLE!

"HERE!" Terrance yelled, scrambling back over the web as fast as he could. "WE'RE HERE!"

_People_, Terrance thought, _People! Other People, who won't make me sick to look at them! Oh, Thank Arceus!_

Terrance strained his eyes to see them, the people who were normal, blessedly _normal-_

Terrance was rammed aside by a tall blur, and shared an astonished look with an equally bowled over Roxanne that turned to utter incredulity when the mystery person promptly ran to Dennis and flung his arms around him and began to weep.

Puffing along behind him was a familiar looking girl with a Skarmory, both of them looking filthy and exhausted.

"What," She wheezed, "What-what is going _on_- Douglas, do you know that person- Hey!" She pointed at Terrance and Roxanne, sputtering, "You and You! You Guys- You were up on that ridge! You fell in here too? Hey, do you know who-or, _or what_ that kid that Douglas is hugging is?"

Terrance and Roxanne stared at each other, utter incomprehension reflecting in both of their eyes.

Terrance was the first to speak, still half-staring at Roxanne. "No. We don't know who he is, really. We just met him."

The Girl stared at both of them, and Roxanne and Terrance stared back. Dennis was now hugging the boy back and weeping again, but nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention to them.

"What the_ HELL_ is going on here?" Terrance finally said.

The Skarmory clacked its beak menacingly. "I don't know about you," The Girl said, a grim look in her eyes, "But the way I see it, Douglas _definitely_ has some explaining to do…"

. . .


	5. Chapter 5

_To say that we'd all been having a bit of a rough day was an understatement_, Roxanne thought. _First, we fall off a cliff, then we meet that creepy child thingie Dennis, and Skidmore _still_ hasn't woken up to fix everything. _

"Miss Roxanne, I understand that we've all had our trials today, but since we agreed to listen to Mr. Douglas, we should do him the courtesy of remaining silent."

_Oops_, Roxanne thought. "…I said all that out loud?"

Terrance,_ like the nice guy that he was_, Roxanne thought fondly, nodded and forced a smile.

"Sorry. Douglas-"

"Get on with it, would you?" Snapped the Angry-Shouting Girl

Douglas wrapped his arm around Dennis a bit tighter-_ It was so cute, how they loved each other_, Roxanne mused- and started to say something, but then stopped. "I-I don't know where to start, actually…"

The Shouting Girl- had to remember to ask her name sometime- looked like she was on the verge of saying something really nasty, but her Skarmory laid a wing on her shoulder and Terrance gave Douglas a look that said very clearly: _I'm-running-out-of-patience-here_, and said "The beginning, perhaps?"

"And STOP STALLING!" The Shouting-Girl- well, shouted.

"Right. OK. My name is Douglas Parr, and this is my younger brother Dennis. When I was ten and he was seven, our parents took us on a trip from where we lived in Unova to a dig site here. Our parents are both Archeologists, and they were curious about the carvings that had been found in a cave on the Route nearby.

"It was my job to watch Dennis. But…I was _ten_, OK? I didn't know what could happen- I got bored of watching Dennis, and I went off to see if Beheeyem could take the Pokemon here. So I left Dennis with Ollie- he was just a Joltik then, really tiny- on the edge of the dock that we fell off of.

"I was on the other side of the ridge surrounding that pool, when I heard Dennis scream and fall."

Roxanne, hearing Douglas's voice thicken, looked down at Skidmore and patted his fur awkwardly. Douglas's voice shuddered for a few moments before he regained control and began to speak again. Relieved, Roxanne looked back up again.

"I went into the water after him, of course. I slid down the side of the ridge and swam around for ages, looking for him. I sent Beheeyem to go find Mother and Father, and then they were in the water too, trying to find Dennis and Ollie. Father even sent out his Swanna and Stunfisk to check down where we couldn't reach."

"But they couldn't find me." Dennis whispered. "Nobody found me, till Roxy and Terry. And Ray."

"Ray?" Roxanne asked, "Who's 'Ray'? Did he fall in here too?"

"I believe that you said that 'Ray' had a Hypno, Dennis, is that correct?" Terrance said sharply.

Douglas and Dennis both nodded, to the bafflement of Roxanne. And, she guessed, by the looks on Terrance and the other Girls' face, to the shock of them to.

Douglas began to speak again, a haggard look coming over his face. "Once my parents couldn't find them, they called in the local Police and Rangers. They got their water Pokemon looking too, but no matter how far they went down, there were no bodies to find. And…after a few days, they stopped trying. They put Denny- they put my little brother and Ollie down on a list of 'Missing Persons and Pokemon, presumed dead' that they had for Silent Springs.

"My parents and I stayed another week at the camp. I think that they were hoping that Denny and Ollie were just going to wander back into the camp one day, safe and sound. I staked out the Springs and the woods around it. My parents- they tried not to blame me for not watching Denny better, but…it was hard to be around them. It was…it hurt them to be around me, I think."

Roxanne gave an impatient sigh, and the Skarmory clacked her beak in a menacing fashion. Douglas hastily resumed his story.

"It was the day before we were going to leave when I found Ray and his Hypno. I was sitting on the edge where Denny and Ollie had fallen, and the two of them literally fell from the sky and landed in the water below me. The moment I could, I grabbed ahold of him and started asking questions about Denny at him, but they both shook me off and ran to go roll in the grass. It took me about an hour of badgering before either of them said anything to me.

"Ray was older than I was then, about thirteen or so. He was tall too, and I could count his ribs through his shirt. But what I remember most was that his eyes were blue and they were older than any eyes that I had ever seen before. He and his Hypno scared the hell out of Beheeyem and me, even though we didn't know why."

Angry Girl cracked her knuckles in a meaningful way. Douglas glared at her, and snapped, "Kim, I'm _getting_ there."

"Well, "Kim said, "_Get there faster_."

_Kim_, Roxanne thought, _Kim, I've got to remember that- Skidmore isn't here to remind me, so I've got to remember people myself._

Douglas resumed his story again. "When I finally got Ray to talk back to me, he told me that he'd seen Denny and Ollie. Ray had been- well, Ray had been here for a long time. He told me that he'd gotten Denny and Ollie to help him and his Hypno out, and that they'd 'taken their places'. I tried to get Ray to give me the way back in, but he told me that it only ever opened up once every eight years."

"It's b_ecause of _the tu**rnin**g," Dennis whispered. Roxanne jumped at his voice, she'd almost forgotten that he was there, he'd been so quiet. "**Every eight years**, this **place and** Outside t_urn enough to line up to_ each other. And _when they line up, the two_ of t**hem c**an snag _on each other_, and holes can **open up. And when they** have holes, then things can fall through." His voice had a monotonous tone to it, like he had spoken the same words many times before.

Roxanne exchanged nonplussed looks with Terrance and Kim. Douglas, however, nodded. "Actually," he admitted, "That is fairly close to how it works. After I talked to Ray, I went and looked at the list of 'Missing and Presumed Dead' that the Rangers and Police kept. I checked back ninety-six years, and I found that on the same day that Denny had vanished, June 16, there was a thirteen year old boy named Ray De Santis who went missing with his Hypno in the same place as Denny and Ollie did. But this happened back in 1987. And if you keep going back by factors of eight, then you get five other people and Pokemon going missing back to 1915, with Lavinia Thompson and her Magmortar. There've probably been other disappearances, but they just weren't listed until around the 1900s."

"As fascinating as this story is," Kim snapped, "What does it have to do with us?"

Roxanne nodded in agreement. "Dennis said that he had a way out, and from what you said this Ray person found a way out too. And I'm getting worried about Skidmore, so let's skip the story and get going!"

Douglas gave Roxanne a blistering glare and visibly reined in his temper before he spoke again. "I said that _I'm getting to it_. However, I'm concerned that the way out that I give you may not be what you want to hear."

Roxanne stared at Skidmore. They'd never gone this long-however long it had been- without talking to each other, never. Even when they were arguing with each other, they'd always talked. And this place… "This place…," Roxanne whispered, "This place is tearing at us. It is turning us into jerky people who shout at each other all the time. And not just like friends do, either. I mean in a way that says you want someone to get _hurt_."

Roxanne took a deep breath, and met the eyes of each person and Pokemon in turn. Kim. Kim's Skarmory. Terrance. Amberly. Dennis. Dennis' spider-thingie. And Douglas. They had all become quiet, and were listening to Roxanne with an almost nonplussed intensity.

"I hate it here. I want to go home, and I want to argue with Skidmore about where we're going to go next.

"Dennis said that we have to face something. Fine. I'm tired of this place, and I'm tired of talking about Douglas's feelings. Terrance and I were being led by Dennis to a way out when you three barged in here and stopped us. WHO CARES about whatever Douglas says that we're not going to like! How can it possibly be worse than what we're knee-deep in now**?"**

Douglas dropped his head, and Roxanne watched him stare at the grotesque face of his brother. Terrance and Kim began to exchange _meaningful_ stares over them. _Skidmore and I used to do that_, Roxanne recalled. _We'd stare at each other for hours, just stare at each other in the middle of a crowd, and by the time we were done we'd have fought and made up at least six times._

Douglas jerked his head up again, his jaw set in a way that told Roxanne very clearly that whatever issue it was that Douglas had been struggling over had been resolved. There was a grim look in its place now, like Douglas was getting ready for a long battle.

"You're right. It doesn't matter anyway." Douglas shifted Dennis so that Dennis was riding on Douglas's back. "Let's go and get the hell out of here."

. . .


	6. Chapter 6

The eight of them had crossed over the web bridge that Ollie had made, and were climbing up a steep hill, almost bent double from the steepness of the incline. Dennis was riding on Douglas' back, Terrance was carrying Amberly, and Roxanne was still hauling Skidmore. Kim was doing slightly better than the rest of them, because her Skarmory- Mimi, Roxanne had learned her name was- got to swoop around them with ease, the lucky duck.

"So," Roxanne puffed, "Kim, why… aren't you …riding on Mimi? It's gotta…be better…than walking!"

Kim flashed Roxanne a quick, tired grin. " Because Mimi can't take…all of my weight…especially not for…long periods."

"Sooo…You're saying you're fat?"

The grin changed to a glare. "Shut…Up…"

Roxanne gave a happy giggle-snort. This was better, she thought. This was a lot better. Nobody was fighting, nobody was yelling, and they were almost at the top of this Arceus-accursed giant hill-

"And here we are!" Roxanne laughed. She would have normally spun around and maybe jumped around a bit, but with Skidmore getting heavier on her back all the time the most she could manage was a half-hearted fist pump. But that was A-OK, since they were getting out of this hellhole soon enough, and then Skidmore would wake up and everything would be OK again.

The rest of the group came over the hill and onto the plateau; and Roxanne turned to Douglas, a sudden question springing to her mind.

"Hey Doug!" Roxanne called. "Doug, where's _your _pokemon at? You had one with you when we came in, right?"

Douglas had an almost pained look on his face when she asked him that. Roxanne wondered if maybe she should ask Kim to take Dennis for a while, to give Douglas a rest. She'd have to ask carefully, or else Kim would probably snap at her-

There was a sudden shudder in the air, and the entire group jumped in shock, too used to the motionlessness.

"The ground!" Terrance yelped.

Roxanne could feel her mouth dropping open. The ground. Was. Glowing, shimmering, shining, sparking with an incandescent energy that rose up out of the terracotta soil like it was nothing but mist and coagulating into a slightly opaque rectangle that floated about six inches of the ground. And then stayed there, motionless.

"….Wow…" Kim whispered.

They stood frozen for several moments, all of them but Dennis eyeing the rectangle as though it was going to spring at them and wallop them over their heads.

"Oh, for the love of…." Kim grumbled. "Why does this even surprise me?" Kim detached herself from the group and walked boldly towards the rectangle and jumped up onto it.

"MISS KIM!" Terrance hissed agitatedly, "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT _DOES_!"

"Well, we're hardly going to find out just standing there like a herd of Miltank, are we?" Kim snapped. "Roxanne, Douglas, get on here with me!"

Roxanne and Douglas automatically moved towards the floating rectangle, compelled by the authoritative tone in Kim's voice. Terrance stayed back, unease clear on his features.

"Oh come on, Terrance, just get _on_." Kim moaned.

Terrance gingerly stepped onto the rectangle, awkwardly jostling the others for a secure spot. The rectangle stayed floating at the same height.

"So what do we do now-"

There is another ripple in the air, this one softer, and the rectangle glows with a blistering flash for a blink before there are countless rectangles rising up out of nothing and stopping at regular intervals, each one higher than the last.

Terrance gaped. "Unconnected stairs floating and…glowing…in mid-air."

Roxanne felt a spasm of concern. Was Terrance finally cracking from the stress? "Are you OK, Terr?"

He didn't answer. Roxanne gave herself a mental note to keep a close eye on Terrance, and glanced around to see how Dennis was doing. Dennis gave what was certainly intended to be an encouraging smile and nodded towards the next floating rectangle, and Roxanne forced herself to smile in return.

_Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained_, Roxanne thought. Then she jumped to the next stair, and waited to see if it would hold. It did.

Roxanne steeled herself, and began to climb.

. . .

"Are we there yet?" Roxanne groaned.

"1,243" Terrance replied.

"What?" Kim moaned.

"It's how many stairs we've climbed." Douglas explained.

"And with no end in sight…" Roxanne sighed.

They stopped briefly, shifting awkwardly from leg to leg, all trying to avoid looking down. They had climbed to about 600 feet, by Kim's reckoning. Roxanne was inclined to trust her word, Kim regularly flew, after all.

"Maybe Mimi will see something." Kim said with a brief burst of exhausted optimism.

Mimi chose that moment to swoop back into view, shaking her head. At the sight of that, Amberly gave a wail.

"Oh, be quiet!" Kim snapped. "Terrance, can't you control that thing?"

Terrance huffed out a breath. "Well, let's keep going anyway. We've come this far, and these stairs have to end sometime."

Roxanne shook her head. "Not soon enough for me, I tell you. Not nearly soon enough."

They kept quiet as they resumed their climb, each alone with their thoughts; the only sound their labored breathing. Roxanne began to feel a pricking on the back of her neck and a knot in the pit of her stomach. She had no idea why it was there, but if there was one thing that Skidmore had ever taught her, it was to trust her gut instinct.

Something was wrong. _Well, _she thought_, they were in some weird alternate universe-place where they were climbing floating and faintly glowing stairs into nowhere. Maybe it was just that I'd never known I was afraid of heights before? _

_Besides, _she thought, _everything is going pretty good right now. These steps had to go somewhere, right? _

_So why_, Roxanne thought_, am I thinking that I've missed something here?_

. . .

They had kept climbing, and the only thing that had kept Kim from screaming out in fury and frustration was the pressure she felt building up behind her eyes. It wasn't painful, at least not yet, but it had gagged her tongue and made her fight to keep her legs steady and away from the edges of the stairs.

_I've got to keep going, I've got to keep going_, Kim thought. _I will not let this place beat me. I'm stronger than this place. This pressure only means that we're going up, that we're getting somewhere. And since we fell _down_ into here, it makes sense that to get out we need to go up. Something is changing, so we must be getting close. _

Mimi swooped in close enough to cast a concerned gaze towards Kim._ I'm fine, _Kim tried to convey with her eyes_. I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine. We're going to make it out of this stupid place, and we're going to see sunlight again. And the moment that we're safe and out of this mess, I'm going to beat the hell out of Douglas, and you can help me. _

Mimi clacked her beak, and banked sharply to her right. Kim wasn't sure if Mimi had gotten the entire message, but she seemed to have gotten enough of it.

_ I'm going to get out of this, _Kim swore again. _I'm not going to let this place beat me. I'm strong- I'm stronger than Douglas, and I'm stronger than this Arceus-accursed place. _

_ I will not let it beat me. _

. . .

Denny is happy. Dougie is here. Dougie is safety, Dougie is love. Dougie and Ollie will protect me.

Gonna see the sun-shine, sun-shine, sun-shine, gonna see the sun-shine soon!

And Ray hadn't lied, either! Denny knew it! Like Ray had said: "There will always be people in the world who are good, Kid. And sooner or later, one of those good people will come for you."

But Denny was lucky, because SURPRISE! _Four_ good people had come! Kimmy was so strong, Terry was so strong, Roxy was so strong, and Denny had always known that his brother was the strongest ever!

Gonna see the sun-shine, sun-shine, sun-shine, gonna see the sun-shine soon! Gonna see the sun-shine, sun-shine, sun-shine, gonna see the sun-shine soon!

Olly-Olly Oxen FREE!

. . .

Terrance had never known his shoes to hurt his feet this much before. Terrance had never known that Amberly was so heavy before.

Terrance kept his head bowed down, watching the steps beneath his feet. He could see for miles below him. The landscape was exactly the same as everything else, terracotta ground, water that defied gravity. There was the exception of what looked like immense dark greenish-brown and waterweed-like objects that he assumed were trees, for lack of a better word, which he had not seen when he was on the ground.

1,467 steps.

1,468 steps.

1,469 steps.

Terrance wanted to scream. He wanted to howl. He wanted to cry and rage at the heavens.

1,470 steps.

He refused to.

1, 471 steps.

_I am the only sensible one here_, Terrance whispered in his head_. I am the only one who is capable of keeping my temper. I cannot lose control, I _will not_ lose control_.

Terrance knew that he had the control that he needed. He had trained himself for years to get it, after all.

1, 472 steps.

_This place will not beat me_, Terrance vowed. _I am better than it. _

1,473.

. . .

_I'm close. I'm so close that I can almost taste it_, Douglas thought. _I got Dennis. I've got the others here. And nobody thought to ask me what I knew. _

Douglas tightened his grip on his brother. _We're so close, Denny. I'm going to get you out of here, and then you'll go back to looking normal and everything will be alright again. You don't know how happy Mother and Father will be to see you again, I don't think that they've smiled properly since you've been gone._ "We're almost there, Denny." Douglas whispered. "We're almost there.

Douglas glanced furtively at the others. They all had their eyes down and glazed over, lost in their own thoughts_. Good_, he thought savagely, _good. You keep your eyes down, and you trust me. I'm smarter than you. I'm better than you. Nothing you do can…stop…me…_

"**GGRROOEEKKK**!"

Douglas froze in place, jaw agape as he stared at the behemoth that had materialized in front of them out of nowhere. It was a giant, dragon-like Pokémon, with an appearance similar to that of a large dinosaur . It had 6 legs, gold protrusions that look like external ribs, and golden horns on its head. It had black wings with three red thorn-like appendages called coming out of them. It gave off the same aura of fear and revulsion that Dennis and Ollie did.

"1,500," Terrance whimpered. "…1,500 steps…"

"Holy Hell," Kim mumbled, "**Holy goddamn hell**."

Roxanne let out a combination of a moan of pain and a scream of horror.

A bizarre thought raced through Douglas's head as his brain fought to process the nightmare in front of him without diving off the edge of the stairs. _This is what the monster under my bed looked like. _

Dennis threw back his head and laughed, joyous and free. "_Olly-Ol_ly Oxen **FREE**!"


	7. Chapter 7

Terrance was rooted to the spot. He was done. Finished. At the end of his rope. Every man had his limits, and Terrance reached his when some Eldritch abomination popped up.

_It figures, _Kim thought_, that he would choose __**now**__ to lose it_.

"SKARM!"

Mimi was swooping through the air, sending wave after wave of stars at the monster, none of which seemed to be having any effect. The monster wasn't even attempting to dodge, merely screeching and snapping its beak whenever Mimi got close enough and firing of balls of black energy whenever she was not.

"Mimi!" Kim shouted, "It's no good! Try and hit it with Aerial Ace!" Kim turned wildly around and pointed at Amberly, who was cowering against Terrance. "YOU! Do- DO SOMETHING!"

The sound of her voice seemed to galvanize Terrance into action. "Amberly! See if Charm has any effect, quick!"

Amberly leapt away from Terrance and shot a blast of hearts toward the monster. They flew true, and landed right on its chest. The monster, feeling this as it had not felt the stars, reared its head back and screamed loud enough to put Terrance and Kim on their knees to join Roxanne and Douglas, who were already there. Roxanne had her arms wrapped around Skidmore, and was chanting at a nonstop mumble. The only words that Kim could make out were "please" and "Skidmore". Denny merely threw back his head and laughed more.

Mimi, taking advantage of the monsters distraction, swooped in and hit the monster with an Aerial Ace right between the eyes.

"Yes!" Kim shouted, a spark of hope filling her. If only Mimi could just keep it up-

The brief hope spot died when the monster began to furiously undulate its many tentacles, drew itself up to its full height, and _screech_. Kim buried her face into the stairs and felt Mimi land on top of her writhing in pain, and was distantly aware of Roxanne's pleas to Skidmore rising to a frenzied pitch. Tears began to well up in her own eyes, the one thought barreling around in her head screaming makeitstopmakeitstop_makeitstop-_

And then there was a rush of wind, an explosion, and the screeching changed from one of fury to one of pain. Kim raised her head, still shaking, and felt her jaw drop again.

. . .

Roxanne could feel tears running down her face and could feel a trembling laugh forcing itself past her lips.

"_Do not worry, Roxanne_."

_I was scared_, she thought. _I was so scared that you wouldn't wake up._

"_I_ _know, Roxanne_."

_ You jerk. You jerk, jerky-jerk! I carried you up a mountain! Up a bunch of floating stairs! _

_ "And I greatly appreciate that. Now, if I may?"_

Roxanne heaved herself onto her feet, and wiped a shaking hand across her face, huffing a laugh. "Well, I guess that I forgive you. But you'd better beat the **hell** out of this joker!

Skidmore shifted into an offensive position, and focused his gaze upon the monster, which was regathering its wits from the Dragon Pulse it had taken to the head.

"_It will be my pleasure to soundly thrash him, Miss Roxanne."_

Roxanne grinned back at Terrance, Kim, Douglas, and Dennis. Amberly, Ollie, and Mimi struggled to their feet and hurried to put themselves between the monster and their trainer.

"One monster verses Skidmore, Amberly, Ollie, Mimi, and my own awesomeness," Roxanne muttered. "It doesn't have a _chance_…"

. . .

Douglas prided himself on not being stupid, so when Skidmore and Roxanne decided to act like big damn heroes, and Terrance and Kim decided to join in, he stayed the heck down, and made sure that Dennis was down there with him.

"Mimi, keep using Aerial Ace!"

"Amberly, use Fake Tears and DON'T STOP!"

"FIND AN ASS AND THEN KICK IT, SKIDMORE!"

With three Pokemon with a renewed will to fight, the Giratina was visibly losing ground, but it kept going, unleashing blobs of dark energy and summoning purple winds. But even though Douglas guessed that it could easily take on any one of them one on one, against all three it was still getting hit with at least two attacks for each of its own.

They were going to win. Douglas could feel it in his bones. They were going to win.

And just as he thought it, they did. The monster gave one last defiant shriek, but it was a pale imitation of what had once brought them to their knees. Douglas scrambled to his feet, adjusting his grip on Dennis, and held his breath.

After the monster fell from view, there was a second to breathe. And then the stairs began to give off a discordant hum, glowing with an almost painful white light.

"OH, WHAT THE HECK NOW?" Kim wailed. "_MORE _MONSTERS?"

"_No_!" cried Dennis, "**Now**, _we go into_ **the l**ig_h_t!"

In front of the stairs where the monster had previously been hovering, the air began to ripple, and then formed into a rough circle. And dear Arceus, Douglas could smell fresh air through it.

"HURRY!" Dennis cried, "HURRY!"

Terrance and Kim wasted no time in diving through the portal, taking their Pokemon with them. And then only Skidmore and Roxanne were left.

Roxanne beckoned them forward furiously. "C'mon, C'MON! Me and Skidmore need to go last, in case the monster comes back!"

Douglas felt bile rising in the back of his throat. _It has to be done, it has to be done. For _Dennis.

Roxanne was walking towards him, a frantic look on her face. "DOUG, DENNIS, COME ON!"

Douglas sucked in a rattling breath. "I-I have to do this, you have to understand. You will _understand_, one day!"

"Doug, what are you talking-"

"Beheeyem, NOW!"

Beyheeyem rocketed out from under the steps, and shot his Psybeam straight into Roxanne's stomach. For a second, Douglas almost reached out for her as she staggered towards the edge, her hand stretched out towards him.

But then she fell, and Douglas knew it was done.

The Lucario _roared, _and flung an Aura Sphere at him before pinning him to the steps, his face twisted into a snarl and his hand a centimeter above Douglas's face and glowing bright blue.

"Are you going to kill me," Douglas whispered, "Or are you going to let her fall?"

There was a blink when Douglas thought the Lucario was going to do both.

"_I will find you one day."_ The Lucario hissed. _"I will find Roxanne and we will escape, and I will __**tear you apart**__."_

The Lucario jumped over the ledge after Roxanne, and Douglas fled for the portal, Dennis, Ollie, and Beheeyem in tow.

. . .

Terrance laid flat on his back on the most wonderful green grass that he had ever felt in his life, drying off in the sunshine. Beside him, Amberly, was snuffling a flower in ecstasy. Never before had he known that the air had smelled, or that there had been a thousand and one little sounds that filled his ears, or that they had been so _wonderful_.

They had fallen out of the portal above the lake, and had frantically swum to the shore and clawed their way out of the water. Kim was a short ways away, helping to dry off Mimi, with the same exuberant grin on her face as the one on his.

There is a loud splash from the lake below, and then Douglas, Dennis, Ollie, and a weird looking Pokemon float up to the rest of them. Dennis, Terrance notes, is looking younger already.

The portal closes with a snap.

And then Terrance realizes that there is a distinct lack of auburn hair and exasperated Lucario.

Terrance stares at Douglas. Douglas flinches away from his gaze and looks to Dennis, who is twining his hands through the grass.

"Where are they?" he whispered. "What have you done?"

Douglas does look at him then. "What I had to do. Dennis couldn't leave there without someone to take his place. And I had to take care of him."

Kim is staring at Douglas with abject horror. "You…you couldn't have- _you left her there?"_

Douglas swallowed, and drew himself up. "I did what I had to do. For Dennis."

Terrance punched him in the face, his vision obscured by a red haze.

Douglas took the hit silently, and then nodded towards the Beheeyem. "You won't be seeing us again. Ever." At the nod, the Beheeyems' eyes flashed and then they were gone. Teleported.

"GET BACK HERE!" Terrance screamed. "GET BACK HERE AND LET HER OUT OF THERE, DAMN YOU!"

Behind him, Terrance could hear Kim crying.

. . .

"So. We're trapped here. And…I don't think the others will be coming to get us for a…for a long time."

"_No. We are not. We will get out of here, Roxanne, I __**swear to you**__."_

Roxanne and Skidmore sat on a ledge together, legs dangling into the endless space.

"Skidmore. I'm-you could've gotten out."

Skidmore looked away, and sniffed. "_Miss Roxanne. You know that there is no conceivable way that you could survive in another dimension without my assistance_." Skidmore looked back at her, and the lines around his eyes got just a bit softer, so Roxanne knew that he was smiling at her in the way that meant he loved her.

Roxanne cleared her throat and wiped something that was most absolutely not a tear out of her eye. "Skidmore-sweetie, there is no being on this planet that I would rather be stuck in an alternate dimension- place with. Now, come on! Enough lazing around! Let's get exploring for the back way out!"

_ "As you wish, Miss Roxanne."_


End file.
